No big bang in the PAF: billionaire Xavier Niel’s TV project will not replace M6, which will keep its frequency on digital terrestrial television (TNT), just like TF1.
Even if these two frequencies have not yet been formally reallocated, only their current holders remain in the running for the last part of the procedure, announced Wednesday Arcom, the media regulator.
This puts an end to the hopes of Mr. Niel, who wanted to create a channel called “SIX” to replace M6, but whose project was not accepted.
As soon as this announcement was made by Arcom, the billionaire reacted with a quirky message on Twitter. He wrote “The M6 Frequency” above the photo of a crying teenager saying “How the fuck can you get it back, NEVER can I get it back”.
The M6 group expressed its “satisfaction” in a press release. According to him, this step allows him to “consider with serenity the continuation of the broadcasting of his programs in the service of the public in the strict respect of his obligations”.
The authorizations to operate channels 1 and 6 of the DTT expire on May 5 and their reattribution for ten years had been the subject of a call for applications.
Without surprise
For channel 6, the fact that the project of the outgoing was privileged to that of the troublemaker Xaviel Niel is not a surprise.
It was indeed difficult to imagine M6 stopping purely and simply on DTT, even if it might in theory have continued on all the other channels (streaming and satellite), or even postponed part of its programming on its other DTT (W9, 6ter, Paris Première and Gulli).
There was even less suspense for TF1, the only candidate for its frequency.
This reattribution procedure is a first since 1987, the year of the privatization of TF1 and the arrival of M6 on the sixth hertzian network: until now, these pioneers had benefited from a renewal without a call for applications and in return for commitments to the regulator.
Arcom “will now initiate discussions with the selected candidates (TF1 and M6, NLDR) in order to conclude an agreement intended to define the obligations and commitments of each of the two services”, she explained in a press release.
“This agreement must be adopted before the issuance of an authorization to use the (frequency), which itself must take place before May 5, 2023,” added the regulator to specify the timetable.
Ranged duel
The three candidates had been auditioned by Arcom on February 15, which had been the occasion for a remote duel between Mr. Niel and Nicolas de Tavernost, chairman of the management board of M6.
Heard the first, Xavier Niel, at the end of communicating, had summed up his project with a shocking formula: “Put people before money. »
The founder of the telecom operator Free, very present in the press (group Le Monde, Nice-Matin, L’informé), promised less , more new programs and first evening games starting before 9:00 p.m.
An attack to which his rival Nicolas de Tavernost had replied during his hearing: “25 million French people receive us by DTT, of which 10 million have no other possibility. Who is ready to deprive this public of our programs? »
At the head of the M6 group for 23 years, Mr. de Tavernost had highlighted the respect by the chain of its “legal and conventional obligations”, as well as its good financial health.
“We have plenty of surprises in store for you for the next ten years,” assured Mr. de Tavernost, a few months following the failure of the merger project between M6 and TF1 in September.
For his part, the new boss of TF1, Rodolphe Belmer, had defended a project in the continuity of the group’s previous commitments, with an emphasis on French fiction, entertainment and the development of audiences on its digital platform.
Source: AFP
No big bang in the PAF: billionaire Xavier Niel’s TV project will not replace M6, which will keep its frequency on digital terrestrial television (TNT), just like TF1. Even if these two frequencies have not yet been formally reallocated, only their current holders remain in the running for the last part of the procedure, announced Wednesday…
